Une Envie de Sel

Lost, the final season...
or...
All your questions will be answered...
or...
Q and the Butterfly Pavilion (in which none of your questions will actually be answered).

So, clearly, it's not actually spring yet. But it is that borderline between February and March, the seasonal hinterlands where I get bogged down in some sort of vague seasonal disorder each and every year.
It's always a rough season for me, and so it was the perfect time to visit the warm, boggy greenhouses of the local butterfly pavilion. Not the first visit for my husband and I, but the first visit for the Q, which makes it a landmark, hence a banner opportunity for many, many photos.

Q is a little bit afraid of bugs (one of the very few things she is afraid of) so butterflies were a bit marginal for her. She wasn't freaked-out, but she was a bit subdued.

A Dr. Seuss flower.
Many, many Dr. Seuss flowers.
Yet more Dr. Seuss flowers.
And then she found her confidence and cut loose.
A small girl visiting with one of the local denizens.
Q making friends in the faux jungle.
This is Rosie, the resident tarantula. My husband is not a fan of tarantulas. But I myself have been eagerly anticipating the day when I might have an excuse to let Rosie tickle my palm with her furry little feet.

Because I AM a tarantula fan. When I was small and spending half of every year on our ranch in Southern Colorado, my father was the champion of tarantulas in our region. Tarantulas, coyotes, and rattlesnakes, actually. My father was their best friend. When everyone else in the area considered them all pests, and would do their best to run over them when they happened to have the poor judgement to cross the road, my father would actually stop the car, leap out, and run into traffic in order to save the life of whatever "pest" was in danger.

I saw him save the life of many a tarantula during my early years, so that it was hardly a surprise the day that he came home from an errand with a gift for my 10-year-old self: a wild tarantula carefully cradled in a box of nails he'd just purchased from the hardware store in town. He had saved it from being run over by a malicious local in a pickup truck, scooped it up on his shovel, and carried it home to his only daughter.

For several years, I had been an avid (if temporary) collector of ants, garter snakes, waterbugs, gophers and field mice. So it was that we already had an easily-adaptable container in which to keep our new friend. We adored him (or her) instantly, though the feeling was not entirely mutual. The tarantula apparently (and understandably) loathed us, and would throw its furry, russet body violently against the roof of its container every time we set a fond finger there in order to stroke it through the mesh.

As a result of its evident distress, we released it into the peaceful and automotive-free wilderness of our acres just a few days later. I have always remembered that spectacular spider with fondness.
Q shows the same propensity for loving animal life as I had as a child. I have a feeling that, like me, she will understand that, while we have a strong desire to come in contact with other species, they are generally far better off left to their own devices.